The Villow extension
Keep discovering. Choose how much.
Browse YouTube's personalized recommendations where they live, with daily ceilings and calmer settings you choose. Start with the extension on its own, or connect it to your Villow.
- Free and open source
- iPhone and iPad workaround: Orion
A way to begin
- See your time on YouTube today, and your daily average.
- Choose daily ceilings: time on YouTube, recommendations you see and videos you watch.
- Make it calmer: greyscale thumbnails or videos, hide Shorts, side recommendations or comments.
- Choose bedtime, or block YouTube entirely.
These controls work in the browser where the extension is installed. The full finite feed, saved library, reflection, suggestions and social experience lives in Villow.
The full experience
Better with your Villow
- Save discovery for later. When linked blocking is on, clicking a video tile sends it to your Villow feed instead of starting playback. Your daily video ceiling becomes a ceiling on saves.
- Connect your usage. YouTube browser time contributes to your Villow daily limit and appears on your time page.
- Hide subscribed channels on YouTube, since those channels already have a place in your Villow feed.
- Edit shared settings in either place. Supported limit settings synchronize between Villow and connected extensions. Progress rings show how your day is going.
Your limits follow you across Villow and connected browsers.
Coverage means Villow usage, plus YouTube pages in browsers where you've connected the extension. Connect each browser you want to include.
Shared browser controls include daily time, recommendation and save limits. App-specific channel limits, open limits and schedules aren't universally imposed on YouTube browser playback.
The native YouTube app, TV apps and unconnected browsers are outside that coverage. Offline or disconnected browsers can't instantly exchange totals. These are controls you choose to use, rather than universal or tamper-proof restrictions.
YouTube's personalized recommendations aren't imported into Villow. The extension lets you explore them on YouTube with a recommendation-exposure ceiling.
On its own and connected
| Feature | On its own | Linked to Villow |
|---|---|---|
| See your time on YouTube today and your daily average | Yes | Yes (also shown in Villow) |
| Daily time cap on YouTube | Yes | Yes (and YouTube time counts toward your Villow limit) |
| Daily cap on recommendations seen | Yes | Yes |
| Daily cap on videos watched on YouTube | Yes | No (videos are saved to Villow instead) |
| Click a video and it's saved to your Villow feed instead of playing, with a daily save cap | No | Yes |
| Greyscale thumbnails and greyscale videos | Yes | Yes |
| Hide Shorts | Yes | Yes |
| Hide recommendations beside the video you're watching | Yes | Yes |
| Hide comments | Yes | Yes |
| Bedtime that closes YouTube for the night | Yes | Yes |
| Block YouTube entirely | Yes | Yes |
| Hide channels you're already subscribed to (they're in your Villow feed) | No | Yes |
| Edit limits in Villow, and see progress rings on your Villow home page | No | Yes |
| Chrome, Edge and Firefox on computers; Firefox for Android | Yes | Yes |
| iPhone and iPad via Orion's Chrome extension support (workaround) | Yes | Yes |
| Native Safari extension Coming soon | No | No |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
Where the extension works
| Device or browser | Extension support |
|---|---|
| Windows, macOS and Linux | Chrome, Edge and Firefox |
| Android | Firefox; other extension-capable browsers may also work |
| iPhone and iPad | Orion is the current workaround, using its Chrome extension support |
| Native Safari | Planned; not available yet |
| Native YouTube apps and TVs | Outside the extension's coverage |
Villow itself is a web app you can use in a browser on phones, tablets and computers. That is separate from extension support. Get Orion.
What it sends
- Saved videos include the identifying details needed to add them to your feed.
- Connected browsers send daily usage counts, shared settings and connection information to the Villow you selected.
- The list of recommendations you saw stays in your browser; the reported total is a count.
- The extension holds no Google credentials. Saving into Villow's feed is separate from saving to YouTube's own lists.
- The Villow owner controls the receiving database. Choose a host you trust.
Read the policy for the exact fields, local storage, connection behaviour and deletion options.
Connect each browser
Inside Villow, create a connect link and open it in the browser with the extension installed. Use a separate connection for each browser, and revoke a connection when you no longer use it. Review shared settings after connecting.